Nina has been promoted

And she has sure worked hard to get this promotion. She has exerted herself tirelessly, day in and day out, never wasting an opportunity. She has challenged herself, climbing high, crawling low, even sacrificing her own cleanliness when needed. But she did it! Yeah for Nina! Her new title is "Mom's Helper". This job requires her to stay by my side every waking minute of the day. I'm sure it will be tough for her at first - you know, giving up those quiet moments of solitude where she could express herself, experiment, and explore, but she'll adjust. I'm also sure that maintaining a constant visual on Nina will drive me crazy, but I think it will be easier than dealing with things like this on a regular basis:








Not bad, the whole right side of this shirt was blue before I washed it. I doubt the rest will come out. Sorry Jill, Nina owes you a new shirt.



What this picture is unable to portray is the lovely aroma coming from Nina's underwear because she "didn't know we had a bathroom."

Spring-like weather

I've got nothing clever, witty or even interesting to say about it. It's spring and we got a foot of snow.

My awesome easter pictures

I just wasn't with it this Easter. I'll start with the lovely shot of the kids' Easter outfits:



I put Cameron to bed before I realized that I didn't get any pictures of the boys with matching yellow shirts, or Nina in her cute new dress - all compliments of Grandma and Grandpa Marshall. We put off decorating eggs for one reason or another all the way until 5pm Easter Sunday. So that meant that at 6:30 the Easter Bunny came and hid all the eggs. That meant that the kids were in their pajamas (yes, Nina often wears that red dress to bed) and boots (because it was totally raining) hunting eggs. A perfect part of a nice, calm bedtime routine. That meant that nobody was hard to put to bed that night. Riiight.

Onto the pictures of our family Easter hunt. Since Matt was gone, I tried to hold Cameron, take pictures and help our kids find their baskets. It was way to windy for my taste.






And finally, I just wanted to show off my photography skills. I'll start with this blurry and off-centered picture of Matt carrying Nina around the backyard looking for eggs. Apparently it was too hard for her to put shoes on.




At least this one is not blurry.



About a second too slow. He was standing at the top of the slide surveying the playground for eggs.



You can't even tell who those little runners are.



Nice and dark. Perfect.

I just want to tell all of you who have photography skills (i.e. Lindsey, Kim, Brooke, and even you Jill, just to name a few) I admire you! You can do something that is very difficult!

We have a secret

And that secret is....that a lot of houses these days have more than one bathroom. We have a house like that. Apparently it's an idea that's catching on. And a common place for one of those extra bathrooms is directly attached to the master bedroom. We have one of those! And the best part is, that our kids don't know about it. Or should I say they didn't know...





Leave it to Nina to find the secret room. She also found the Alavert. We learned that a 3 year-old needs to eat a whole lot more than 5 to have any serious side effects.

And yesterday was another work day for Matt. He succumbed to my gentle requests that we remove the blue carpet and let the hidden hardwood floor free. Thanks Matt!




Adios blue carpet! Church-style curtains...you're next.

Week in review

We moved here



We emptied these



We caught a fish



We started soccer



Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of:

the green shag carpet we tore out of the basement
the blue carpet we tore out of the dining room
the foot + of snow we got during spring break
the other half of the boxes we unpacked
the green cleaning products Nina poured on Cameron's new carpet
the kids riding their bikes in the street (something they have never been able to do before)

And as you can see, we still have some work to do:



yes that is wall paper on the closet door.



Luckily Nina likes the fact that she has flowers on her wall. Gotta love her positive outlook. She's going to need it since she might be enjoying those flowers for quite some time! (at least until we muster up the energy to tear those beauties down)

Did I set a record?

Nina 3/17/09 "Mom you totally ruined my life!"




3 years and one month - is this a record for total life ruination?

What's wrong with this picture?

I didn't think anything was wrong with it. That is, until I heard Howie and Nina fighting in the back of the car. I asked Nina to get in her car seat and she told me she couldn't because Cameron was in it. Without even thinking about it, I had buckled Cameron in Nina's car seat and was ready to hit the road. Cam didn't complain, he loved facing forward and being able to see everything. He wasn't too happy when I put him back in his own seat.

Cameron is 10 months old today. He sometimes seems older, maybe it's because he's really heavy! He has 1 1/2 teeth which came in just last week. He claps and says "uh oh". No crawling yet, but I think he's showing some interest in taking it up. He's mostly just happy to be here.